


Mystes

by Brighid



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:03:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't how it happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Destina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/gifts).



> This is set in Season six, so some spoilers for things up to and including "The Abyss".
> 
> It's mostly about Jack, and a little about Daniel, and it's for Destina, 'zoot and Salieri, though they're not to be blamed for it.
> 
> This took a year to write.

Mystes

Deiknymena:  
Things Shown  
"…yet beheld earth and starry heaven and the strong-flowing sea where fishes shoal, and the rays of the sun, and still hoped to see …" Hymn to Demeter

Jack woke to the smell of sleep warmed-skin and the sound of Sara snoring. She had snored when she was pregnant with Charlie, and now, again, as their second son was just making her belly drop and fill. It was, Jack thought, a damned nice sound. He slipped from the bed slowly, soothed her sleepy grumbles and propped his pillow behind her back to take his place before heading to the bathroom to shower and shave. 

Charlie was waiting for him, hockey gear ready, halfway through a bowl of Froot Loops. Jack touched the side of his face, fingers ghosting over the puckered white scar that disappeared back into the adolescent's hair. That had been … too close. Too close to not do this, to remind himself of miracles big and small. 

He poured himself coffee, sat across the table from Charlie. "Hey. Morning. At least, I'm assuming." He gestured to the wild white weather and the still-dark sky outside the kitchen window. "I'll drop you off, Mom'll pick you up and drive you to school, you know the drill. So -- meet you at the truck in fifteen?" 

Charlie nodded, still half-asleep and not really talkative yet. Jack put on his heavy parka and boots over his BDU's and went out to warm up the truck and scrape the snow and ice away. Felt a slight twinge in his knees, ignored it. He was too damned busy to be getting old. He smiled. Maybe, if he had any sense, he'd be terrified at the prospect of having both a sixteen year old and a brand new baby in the house, but he didn't feel like being sensible. He just felt like being happy for a change, after the hard patch when Charlie had … had almost … 

and there it was, the fear, the cold clutch. You can't hang onto everything. You can't hold on to happy, you just had to value it when it was there. So he got in the car, and waited, and when Charlie climbed in he said, "How about tonight, if the snow's slowed down a bit, I teach you how to drive in this stuff? We'll go to the parking lot at the mall after it's closed."

Charlie slanted a sideways look at him, a grin cracking his face. "Sweet."

+++

"General O'Neill!" Jack turned, waited for David Jordan to catch up. "Have you _read_ SG-1's report? We've got to go back to P2A-210! There's an entire library of Goa'uld history in there. Just from the pictures they took I've found out more about the first few centuries after Earth broke free to give us a totally new understanding of the internecine politics that have led to the current political situation …" Jack waved the older man to silence, smiling slightly.

"Yeah, Jordan, I noticed that. And I figured you'd be heading up to see me as soon as you got a look at the report." Too old to go into the field in unknown situations, Jordan still fought hard for follow-up missions. "We've got most of our teams out right now, but you come up with a mission plan, build your specialist team and as soon as SG-17 is back we'll brief and go back. I'm willing to give you a little time for Snake History 101."

Jordan laughed. "More like Snake Political Science, but yes." He turned, already muttering to himself, and headed back to his office. Jack felt vaguely envious. He'd had the first mission to Abydos, gotten his promotion after sealing the gate up, worked up in NORAD, only to be called back down to head up the SGC when Apophis had come and in their first, violent confrontation managed to fatally wound General George Hammond. He'd led the initial raid to Chulak to recover the captured personnel, but after that had pretty much been stuck behind a desk.

Sometimes, it drove him a little crazy.

But then he went home again and it seemed crazy to wish life were otherwise.

Still, he made it a point to see each team off, and bring each team home. He checked the time at the thought, doubled his stride. SG-1 was due in. He reached the control room just as the iris snapped open, the GDO code verified. He watched each one come through: Teal'c, Major Carter, Doctor Carson, Lt. Colonel Davis. And then, one more through the gate, tiredly pulling off glasses to rub at his eyes. Jack leaned in, a little curious, a lot pissed. "Who the hell is that with you?"

Davis looked up to the glass. "Sir?"

"The fifth man, Davis. Who the hell is the … " and they turned to look and Jack looked again and there was no fifth man, just SG-1. "Uh. Never mind."

Carter peered into the event horizon as it snapped shut, looked back up the glass. "Maybe it was an … echo of sorts, Sir, a brief doubling of information as Lt. Colonel Davis was reassembled?"

"Don't say reassembled," Davis said, blanching slightly. "I'm not made of Lego."

"What is "lego"?" asked Teal'c. Jack rubbed his own eyes tiredly. 

"Yeah, sure. You betcha. Like bad TV reception. SG-1, we debrief at 16:00, so have all your reports ready and all your holiday slides cued up." Davis snapped a salute up to him with a brisk "Yes, Sir," and then they were heading for the lockers.

Jack peered at the now quiet Gate, and shook his head. An echo. Only … Davis' echo was taller and leaner and had longish brown hair and had been wearing a goddamned _burnoose_ and he looked like … Jack frowned, reaching for and not making the connection that was _just_ there, then gave up. Apparently the glasses weren't just for reading anymore.

+++

Jack held tight to the side of the truck, plastered his feet to the floor and reminded himself that'd he'd flown combat with rookies and walked willingly through wormholes to uncharted regions.

Teaching his son to drive in snow should be a snap.

He just hoped the snap wasn't in his upper vertebrae.

Not that Charlie was bad; he was just sixteen. And driving Jack's truck. His _new_ truck.

"So, whaddaya know?" he asked, and his voice didn't even crack.

Charlie shot a quick, sideways glance at him, one Jack recognized from the mirror. "Four-wheel drive doesn't make you invincible. Leave plenty of room, drive to suit the conditions. In this case, a good 10 miles per hour below the limit. Low lights. Frequent checks. Starts to skid, stomp and steer because this is anti-lock, and pumping will fuck-up the truck and us." He emphasized the "fuck" with a certain amount of relish.

Jack winced. "Let's not tell your mother I let that one slip, huh?"

"Hmmm. On condition of a similar favour sometime in the future?" Charlie said, driving carefully through the empty lot, handling it pretty damn well.

"Yeah, all right. But only for a similar level offense, kid. No taking advantage of your old man. Unless you want to only ever drive your mom's car … Stop! Charlie, stop! Stop!" and he was damned near braking through the floor on the passenger side because all of a sudden there was a flash of flame, a man in desert gear burning in front of the truck, like some of the monks had back in Viet Nam. His face was contorted, consumed, and Jack tasted the stench of seared flesh in the back of his throat.

Charlie braked hard, steered the truck into a smooth stop, in control the whole time. He turned to Jack, who was staring out at the thick white snow, and the empty space that shouldn't have been there. "How'd I do?" Charlie asked.

Jack turned slowly, nodded. "Good, son. You did real good. How about we head home now?" Charlie nodded, slid over as Jack got out and walked around to drive them home. He only let himself linger a moment in the snow, to acknowledge a raw bitterness, like grief, sour on his tongue. What the _hell_ was going on?

It was only later, as he was falling asleep, that he realized the face was the face of the fifth man on the ramp, the man in the burnoose.

He dreamed restless, unfamiliar dreams all night. A staff-weapon blast, a hole in the belly, the way a man smelled and breathed when he was dying. Blue eyes already a little glazed, but determined. Stubborn. Someone telling him to go. He woke up, panting like he'd been running, tired as hell.

His heart ached.

+++

Fraiser looked at him skeptically. "Since when do you come down here willingly, General?" 

Jack shrugged. "Sue me. I like to be unpredictable." Her mouth tightened, and her eyes reminded him of Sara's when the bullshit meter was running. "Truth is, with the new baby coming, I was thinking a physical might be a good idea. Just … you know," and he made a vague sort of hand gesture that carried any meaning the good doctor might choose to interpret. Fraiser's face softened, and she smiled slightly. Babies did that. 

"That's a normal enough worry, I suppose," she said. "Still, did you have any specific concerns, General, or did you just want a basic work-up?"

"Just a basic work-up," he said easily, unbuttoning his shirt as she led him over to the examination bench. "Can't be too careful." 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man in the far bed, twitching fiercely, arching up. Looked like a few of the guys he'd known, after… after … and he got a good look at the face, _the_ face as the man struggled up fighting phantom opponents and then staggered from the room. Jack started buttoning his shirt back up, started moving out the door. "Sorry, Doc, I'll be back, just remembered something I didn't sign off on, and Jordan will hunt me until I do…" and he was down the hallway, following his own personal hallucination 

"You're trying to kill me." The man's voice was hoarse, ragged from screaming.

"There'll be guards here in thirty seconds." Shit. That was ...

"I'm going back." The man's voice was frantic, edged with crazy.

"You don't have to! Fraiser says you're getting better." His voice. His own _fucking_ voice.

"You're lying!" Thick, choked. Disbelieving.

"Why would I do that?!"

He made his way into the storage room and there was darkness and the dull sound of flesh connecting with flesh. Something hit him, knocked him back, and he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun, then up into wide, terrified eyes.

And then there were the words, all around him. Coming from him.

" Daniel! God...What are you going to do, Daniel? Do you want to kill me?" He stared into the sweaty face, and suddenly remembered his own face in the mirror too damned many years ago, and ... shit. "Oh God, look at you. I know what this is. I know what it's like. You can get through it..."

"No." The word broke on a sob, and Jack found himself reaching over, pulling the other man into his arms. He had to hold him tightly because it felt like he just might shake himself apart otherwise. He wept nakedly, painfully, and Jack wanted nothing more than to make it stop, make it better. He closed his eyes and let his hands cup the back of this Daniel's head, only to open them to find his arms empty, the lights on overhead, and a peculiar ache in his gut.

+++

Fraiser looked up when he re-entered the infirmary, smiled at him. "Got everything all squared away?"

Jack should his head slowly. "No, not really. Actually, Doc? What kind of tests do you have for crazy? Because ... I think I'm coming down with a case of it."

Fraiser stopped smiling. "I take it we're no longer referring to parenting a teen and a newborn at the same time?"

Jack scrubbed his hands back through his hair until it stood up in agitated tufts. "No, we're talking a whole 'nother level of crazy here. The kind with sight and sound and guest appearances by people I don't know and nobody else seems to see."

Janet sighed. "Take off your clothes, General, and we'll start with a physical, shall we?"

"I bet you say that to all the crazy guys that come in here," he grumbled. 

"But you're my favourite, Sir," she said with a faint smile before she started her nurses running and got the labs ready for anything.

It was going to be a long day.

+++

"Hey, Charlie. Yeah, I know I promised another lesson tonight, but something crazy happened here," he said.

"Crazy happens there a lot," Charlie complained, but not too seriously. "You owe me."

"I owe you," Jack agreed. 

"You owe mom more, though," Charlie teased. "Because you promised to pick stuff up on the way home."

"Aw, crap." Jack dug the heel of his free hand into his eye tiredly. "I don't suppose you could walk down to ...?"

"Yeah, I could," said Charlie. "But now you owe me double. I'll get Brad next door, we'll take his brother's toboggan."

"Thanks, kid."

"You still owe me. I'm thinking you get my garbage and dish duty next week." Jack could hear the grin in his son's voice.

"I don't owe you that much. Give my love to your mom, all right, kid?"

"Will do."

Jack hung up the phone, stood up, started pacing. This sucked. 

This more than sucked. 

It hoovered. He wanted to pitch something.

"Colonel O'Neill?"

He turned, and gone was the trout and the picture of his family and the nameplate on his desk.

Hammond, five years dead, was peering up at him in a mixture of concern and confusion. "Jack?" he repeated. "What did you come in here for?"

"A nervous breakdown, apparently," Jack said after careful consideration.

"General?"

Jacks spun about to see Fraiser standing in the doorway with a stack of files in her hand, and Carter just behind her left shoulder. "Uh, yeah, Doc?"

"So far all initial tests have come up negative for anything that would cause the sort of hallucinations you've been describing. Major Carter might have a differing explanation, however."

"Carter," he said, looking expectantly at her. "Well, Sir. You know the experiments we did when we first retrieved the quantum mirror from P3R-233? Now, normally, the alternate universes are clearly defined and delineated, utterly separate ... but what if something were causing a bleeding effect between this and an alternate reality? We already know the SGC looks different in other universes, that in some Hammond lived, in some Teal'c stayed with Apophis. What you could be experiencing are incursions from an alternate universe."

"Ah." Jack scratched his ear thoughtfully. "Yeah, but wouldn't it, I don't know, be bleeding for _everybody_?"

Carter did that little head-duck thing which said, "yes-no-maybe I've got to run more simulations." Jack _looked_ at her. "Well, so far you're the only one _reporting_ them, Sir. But that doesn't mean you're the only one experiencing them. Others might have as well, but perhaps the incursions they encountered were less immediately obvious as being out of place. Another reality overlapping ours could be similar enough that only certain things would stand out as incongruous. If that's not the case, perhaps there was something you've done or encountered that makes you more susceptible to perceiving this."

Jack leaned back a bit so that his ass perched on the edge of what was _probably_ his desk. "Such as?"

Carter bit her lip. "Well, a possibility would be your experience when the gate held open on P3X-451. You were the physically closest to the black hole and its time dilation effect, and we have no real idea of how that sort of exposure would affect a human body. At the time nothing unusual was detected, but if you combine that with some event, possibly in the other reality, which _thins_ the boundaries between, well ... " she trailed off as Jack held up his hands. "I'll go run simulations, Sir."

"You do that," Jack agreed. "In the meanwhile, I'll try not to act nuts in front of the base. I hear it's bad for morale."

Fraiser bit back a small smile. "I've not noticed any particular problems with morale so far, Sir."

"You, Doctor Fraiser, are a smart-ass," Jack grinned at her. "Makes me think I must have been hell on my C.O.'s. Dismissed, the both of you. Go make me normal again. Ah, don't say it!" he ordered as both women started to grin. "Seriously. I miss Lamaze again, I'm sleeping on the couch until the kid hits puberty."

When they'd gone he briefly considered paperwork, but he had a bad feeling that he might end up sitting on some alternate Hammond, so he went in to the briefing room instead. 

Only to see the other man, Daniel, already there, talking to someone Jack couldn't see. "Repeat what I’m saying ‘I’m standing right beside you’"

"Actually, I'm across the room from you," Jack said.

"Jack, don't be an ass."

"Daniel?" he said, moving towards him.

But he was gone when he got there.

He didn't feel crazy. It didn't feel like someone else's universe.

It felt familiar. Like memory.

But it was the wrong set of memories. It was almost like watching two films on one reel, a double exposure. It made his head ache.

He sighed, went back to his paperwork, but only after checking the chair out really thoroughly.

+++

He hated doctor's offices, and Fraiser's was no exception. "So you're saying I'm normal."

"I'm saying my tests don't show anything abnormal. Not a single thing is off. Except maybe you should eat less red meat, but other than that? It's all come back within expected parameters." She shrugged. "The next option would be Mackenzie, unless Sam turns something up."

Jack had a sinking feeling Fraiser wasn't expecting Carter to find anything. "Listen. You need to, you set up the appointment. In the meantime, can I go home to my family tonight? I've got things to do and I'd kind of like to get to them since nothing's going wrong _here_ except me." 

Janet chewed on her lip. "I'd allow that provided you were driven home, and if you promised to page me if anything were to happen. And that's provided there are no more little side-trips."

Jack nodded. "Thanks, Doc."

"Maybe Sam will have something for you in the next few hours," she offered tentatively, kindly.

"And maybe she won't," Jack said. He smiled, but he could feel that it didn't come out entirely right. "Let me know if anything comes up, all right?"

"Yes, Sir."

+++

Memory.

It felt like memory.

It felt ... real. More real all the time. Which was ... all kinds of wrong.

And if it was memory ... well, memories had been tampered with before. 

But which reality was being tampered with?

"Sir, we're here."

Jack looked up, startled, then over at the airman very deliberately _not_ watching him. "Sorry, Jones. Long day."

"Yes, Sir," the airman agreed. 

Jack nodded, grabbed his briefcase from the back seat and then headed up the walk. Sara was waiting for him in the kitchen. It smelled of hot chocolate, and when she handed him a mug he was grateful for it. 

"You should be in bed," he said, kissing her cheek. 

"It was batting practice in the cage tonight," she said, gesturing to the wide swell of her belly under the thin-cotton of her nightgown. "Charlie picked up everything on the list. And a few things extra. Did you eat that much when you were a boy?"

"More," said Jack. "You okay?" he asked quietly, turning back to shut off the pot where the hot chocolate warmed. 

She smiled at him, soft and warm, and it made this gut ache. "Yeah. We're doing good." 

Jack poured a bit more into her mug, took the last bit for himself. Leaned back to drink it and suddenly the kitchen around him was not this kitchen at all, the colours were different and everything was in the wrong place and there was a guy ...

there was Daniel, in his fridge. "Dammit, Jack. Don't you have any real food? It's not like we've been offworld or anything. I mean, all you've got in here are dubious left-overs and stuff that goes on food." He stood upright, closing the fridge door. Walked over to Jack and put him arms around his waist. "Next time we eat at my place, even if your bed's bigger," he said, smiling slightly, just before kissing Jack.

He felt his eyes drift close, felt his hands digging into a soft cotton sweater and the warm burn of beard stubble and Daniel's mouth tasted like beer. Halfway through the kiss and the mouth under his seemed smaller, paler, less real. He opened his eyes to see Sara, a little dreamy-eyed, touching her lips.

"What brought that on?" she asked and it was still like he could see right through her. This never happened, he thought, and leaned in to kiss her again, kiss her hard enough to make her as real as the other kiss had been but she wasn't.

Because she was a lie.

"I have always loved you," Jack said, resting his forehead against hers. "Now scoot, up to bed. You and Slugger need your rest. I'll be up in awhile."

She nodded, kissed him again, disappeared into the darkness of the hall. Eyes half-closed against overlapping realities he washed the pot out, secured the locks throughout all the house. He went upstairs by memory, touched the door, pushed it inward. It was hockey now, instead of baseball, but it shouldn't be, because Charlie's room was frozen in time.

And Charlie was dead. He touched the head on the pillow, touched the scar and remembered it going deeper, all the way through. He'd grimly patched the hole the bullet had left in the wall, spending all afternoon filling and sanding. He'd never yet managed to patch the hole inside of himself. He traced the scar into the hairline, listening to the boy breathe.

"You can stop this any time now," he said at last. "I remember how it really was."

+++

Legomena:  
Things Said  
"So did they then, with hearts at one, greatly cheer each the other's soul and spirit with many an embrace: their hearts had relief from their griefs while each took and gave back joyousness." Hymn to Demeter

"Jack?" 

He turned at the sound, saw Daniel standing in the doorway to his ensuite, towel about his waist, his eyebrows lifted and furrowing. "Who were you talking to?"

"No one," Jack said. "Just sorting things out between my ears." He watched as water slipped down Daniel's neck, trailed over his chest. Found himself wanting to lick it. Daniel watched him, smiled as he noticed where Jack's eyes went. He let the towel drop.

"You know," said Daniel, "I can be convinced not to go to the library this morning. I'm very open to convincing." He came and stood close to Jack, and Jack reached out and traced a finger over where the pulse beat in his throat. 

"Can you?" he said at last, quietly, and Daniel leaned in and kissed him, sweetly at first and then lewdly, licking his way into his mouth. Jack felt Daniel get hard against his thigh, felt the pulse and throb of wanting between them that had been building to this for months. 

"You're wearing too many clothes." Daniel bit his ear, pulled, got his hands on the fly of Jack's jeans. Jack let him tug and pull, let him kneel down and take his hard dick into his mouth. He fell back a little, head hitting the wall but it was too damned good to notice the brief pain. He knew he was leaving sweaty palm-prints on the wall but the alternative was grabbing Daniel's head and fucking his mouth and he didn't want it to end that quickly. When it started to be painfully close he pulled Daniel up, kissed him hard, then stood back to strip off his T-shirt and jeans.

"Bed," and his throat felt like he'd been eating ground glass. Daniel fell backwards with a bounce, arms and legs flung wide, smiling as Jack kneeled beside him. "On your belly." Daniel raised an eyebrow but complied, and Jack shifted so that he was between Daniel's spread legs. 

His teeth caught the nape of Daniel's neck and he felt Daniel's moan shiver through him, a long liquid noise. With single-minded determination he worked down each of Daniel's vertebrae, licking and biting and sucking, feeling Daniel twist and sigh beneath him. When he reached the firm, round swell of buttocks he licked down the cleft, tongue teasing and light.

"God," and Daniel's voice sounded halfway broken as he rose to his knees to give Jack better access. "God I love this. Love you."

Jack licked and sucked until Daniel was half-crazy, gasping and swearing and he just kept pushing until Daniel finally forced the issue by flipping himself over and grabbing the nape of Jack's neck to kiss him, hot and wet and nasty. "Suck me," Daniel said and Jack slid down and did just that, until his jaw burned and his knees ached and he'd left finger-sized bruises in Daniel's hips holding him as he stuttered and fell into orgasm. 

He crawled up over Daniel where he had fallen back onto the bed and jerked himself, only needing a few hard strokes before he was shooting all over Daniel's belly, then falling shakily to the side. 

Months of wanting this, years of feeling this. Now he just felt broken. Daniel roused himself to roll over and kissed Jack almost sweetly. Jack cupped Daniel's face with a still slick hand, let himself be truly naked. "I've always loved you," he said and then closed his eyes.

"But this never happened, either."

+++

Dromena:  
Things Done  
"…you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell …with me and the other deathless gods." Hymn to Demeter

When he opened his eyes again Daniel was there, wearing that damned sweater again.

He fucking _hated_ that damn sweater. 

"Wanna tell me what's going on here, and how your Glowyness is involved?" he said, turning slowly around. A cave. Great.

Daniel shrugged. "Not a clue. One minute I'm Ascended and doing what the Ascended do and the next I'm naked in your bathroom."

"I thought you were all powerful and the like, provided you didn't actually try and _do_ anything?" and he was getting goddamned cranky. He kicked at the nearest wall, all rough rock and overhang, and then kicked it some more for good measure.

"Apparently not," Daniel replied, snarky and dry and just like real life.

Jack swallowed. "Well then, what the hell is going on?"

A short woman in a red robe walked from the shadows. "You are amongst the Maene, O'Neill. You sought to trade the dark ore from our mines, do you remember?"

Jack blinked, thought awhile. "You said you couldn't trust us not to use it for the same purposes as the false gods had. You thought we might be like the Goa'uld."

"Correct. And you agreed to undergo the Mysteries to prove your good faith." She came closer, held up a flask. "It's just spring water this time," she said, and he had a sudden memory of the last time, a heavy glass with wine that made his head spin.

"And making me hallucinate proved I'm not a Goa'uld?" he demanded, waving aside the water. "How does getting me stoned prove anything?"

"And why am I here?" Daniel asked. 

"Because he wanted you here," she replied. Nyssa replied, her name was Nyssa. "And the Lord brought you to him, though it's only in this sacred place that you are real."

Daniel bristled a bit at that. "I'm real all of the time," he said, but she only shook her head. 

"You've followed a false dichotomy, divorcing flesh from spirit. The intertwining of the two is what makes us real," she said slowly, as though talking to a dim child.

Jack remembered liking Nyssa, from before. Still.

"And this has to do with my hallucinations _how_?" he demanded. 

She didn't answer at first, instead lighting a torch mounted on the far wall. After a time she seemed to find the right words. "The Mysteries take us back into ourselves. We go into the earth, and we are reborn from it with knowing. I was assigned to follow your journey, to learn your knowing. To learn what is at the heart of you. You showed us that which you wished for, but did not believe possible. You showed us what you had believed possible, but believed you could never have. We have come to know you, and the rest of your team. An agreement will be made."

"What about this part?" Daniel said, his voice gone strange. "There's a third stage to the Mysteries."

Nyssa nodded. "There is. What it is? That is for you to decide between you. In here, now, you are real. Our Lord's power does not extend outside of the heart of this world. Once you leave here, you are bound to flesh no longer. Unless you choose to be." She nodded to O'Neill and gestured to the shadows she had come from. "I will be waiting for you when your journey is over."

"So," said Jack. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I never knew, Jack," Daniel said. 

"I don't think I want to talk about that," Jack said, mouth tightening. "In fact, I'm pretty damned sure I don't want to talk about that."

"But here we are," Daniel said. He leaned against the painted wall and looked like he had every intention of getting comfortable. "And it's not over yet. And you said you loved me."

"I'd just had sex," Jack replied. "Doesn't count. I'm sure that's in the rules somewhere."

Daniel lifted his eyebrow. "Why don't you tell me about the first vision?"

"Hallucination," Jack corrected. "And I really don't want to."

"I think you need to," Daniel said, and Jack just wanted to jump up and down, maybe on top of the newly corporeal Daniel. Because maybe Daniel was right.

"It was like Charlie had never ..." and he couldn't say it, could only gesture helplessly. 

"Died," Daniel said it for him. 

"Yeah. I was a general and I had Sara and Charlie and a baby on the way and it was... it was nice. But it was also bullshit. I couldn't keep myself believing it." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Ah," said Daniel. "Why do you think that was?"

"Because I know my son is rotting in the ground," Jack said, suddenly, overwhelmingly angry. "Nothing in the fucking universe can make me not know that, no matter what I might want. No matter how much I could've spent a whole fucking lifetime pretending otherwise." 

Daniel reached out, touched his shoulder, and his hand was warm. "And with me? That wasn't real, either. Yet you went there next, even though you know I'm not here anymore." His fingers dug into the muscle, tightening and releasing like a kneading cat.

"You're not dead," Jack said simply.

"You never said anything," Daniel said at last. 

"What? Pass the beer, pass the ammo, make a pass at Daniel?" Jack snorted. "I'm all kinds of crazy, Daniel, but not that kind of crazy. And it doesn't matter now, anyway, because you're not dead but you're not here, not really, are you Daniel?"

"I am right now," Daniel replied, and kissed him. Salty-sweet and a little like ozone. Jack pulled back, licking his lips. 

"Are you going to stay here?" Jack asked, knowing the answer. He didn't even flinch when Daniel shook his head. 

"I still think I've more to contribute this way," he said. "But ... you could come with me, you know. The offer still stands." Daniel's eyes were dark and wide, so deep that Jack could barely make out the blue iris of them. There wasn't any real hope there, but the words had to be said. The choice had to be made.

"That's not who I am, Daniel," he replied finally, and it was the truth. "And I couldn't leave Charlie alone." He leaned in, cupped the back of Daniel's neck, kissed him long and hard, trying to memorize the feel and taste of him, trying to carry something of this back into the world. It lasted damn near forever, and when he pulled away his mouth was bruised. "I meant what I said before."

He turned and started walking away, through the shadows into the next cavern where Nyssa waited and then up into daylight and didn't once look back.

His mouth still tasted like Daniel's the whole long walk back to the Gate.

+++ 

Brighid 2004-2005


End file.
